Palm Beach County considers shrinking area for suburban development
By Andy Reid, Sun-Sentinel Staff writer
November 19, 2009
Picking a fight with developers and the Florida Legislature, Palm Beach County commissioners Thursday agreed to consider moving the boundary line created to rein in suburban development.
The "urban services boundary" that zigzags through western Palm Beach County is meant to define where suburban development stops and rural areas begin. The line is intended to keep big new neighborhoods and shopping centers closer to fire stations, schools, major roads and other public facilities and community services.
Moving the line east would be an attempt to limit the amount of traffic-producing, new development in areas where state legislators are considering exempting developers from costly road improvements, normally required to lessen the effects of growth on existing neighborhoods.
Portions of the boundary follow State Road 7 and Florida's Turnpike, also stretching west to include Wellington and Royal Palm Beach.
Commissioner Karen Marcus on Thursday proposed moving the urban services boundary to the east, potentially shifting the line in some parts of the county as far east as Military Trail.
Moving the boundary line would be a pre-emptive strike against potential changes to state growth management laws that the Legislature is expected to take up again this spring.
Legislators have pushed to ease costly road-improvement requirements for developers inside the urban services boundary. State officials contend that could jumpstart construction and help the struggling economy.
Palm Beach County and other local governments object, saying the move to provide exemptions to traffic standards would have damaging long-term effects on communities worried about overdevelopment.
One way to avoid that would be to shrink the area that the county allows more intensive development, Marcus said.
"We need to move our boundary," Marcus said. "It just makes sense to do it. … Be proactive."
The county can expect a fight from developers, said Skeet Jernigan, president of the Community and Economic Development Council, which represents South Florida builders.
Even if the county moves the line, plenty of properties in the affected area already have the zoning and other county approvals needed to be developed, Jernigan said.
"Many of the properties there … are already vested," Jernigan said. "I don't know what the county would be hoping to achieve."
Commissioners agreed to discuss moving the boundary line in January, but Chairman Burt Aaronson raised concerns that it might be seen as trying to "skirt the law."
"How do we go ahead and take back what's already been given?" Aaronson asked.
Also on Thursday, commissioners endorsed new building standards and incentives intended to create an "urban redevelopment area" around the Congress Avenue and Military Trail corridors.
The plan, years in the making, is to encourage new businesses to move into vacant shopping plazas and to lure residential development that would require shorter commutes and give residents access to bus lines and Tri-Rail.
"This is where we want stuff to happen," Commissioner Jeff Koons said.
Joanne Davis, of the development watchdog group 1,000 Friends of Florida, said it was "too bad" the county didn't act sooner to shrink the urban services area and take more steps to encourage redevelopment.
"The mentality of some of the developers is everything is fair game," Davis said.
Andy Reid can be reached at abreid@SunSentinel.com or 561-228-5504.
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